Vegetarian is the New Prius
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-...i_b_39014.html
Kathy Freston.Author, Health and Wellness Expert

President Herbert Hoover promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in
every garage." With warnings about global warming reaching feverish
levels, many are having second thoughts about all those cars. It seems
they should instead be worrying about the chickens.

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the
environment with a stunning conclusion: "The livestock sector emerges
as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the
most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to
global." It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause
of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution,
loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story:
emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our
climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal
flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It seems that when
you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want to
think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report says
almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock (i.e.,
those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle, and
others)--that's more emissions than from all of the world's
transportation combined.

For a decade now, the image of Leonardo DiCaprio cruising in his
hybrid Toyota Prius has defined the gold standard for
environmentalism. These gas-sipping vehicles became a veritable symbol
of the consumers' power to strike a blow against global warming. Just
think: a car that could cut your vehicle emissions in half - in a
country responsible for 25% of the world's total greenhouse gas
emissions. Federal fuel economy standards languished in Congress, and
average vehicle mileage dropped to its lowest level in decades, but
the Prius showed people that another way is possible. Toyota could not
import the cars fast enough to meet demand.

Last year researchers at the University of Chicago took the Prius down
a peg when they turned their attention to another gas guzzling
consumer purchase. They noted that feeding animals for meat, dairy,
and egg production requires growing some ten times as much crops as
we'd need if we just ate pasta primavera, faux chicken nuggets, and
other plant foods. On top of that, we have to transport the animals to
slaughterhouses, slaughter them, refrigerate their carcasses, and
distribute their flesh all across the country. Producing a calorie of
meat protein means burning more than ten times as much fossil
fuels--and spewing more than ten times as much heat-trapping carbon
dioxide--as does a calorie of plant protein. The researchers found
that, when it's all added up, the average American does more to reduce
global warming emissions by going vegetarian than by switching to a
Prius.

According to the UN report, it gets even worse when we include the
vast quantities of land needed to give us our steak and pork chops.
Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural
land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet. As a result,
farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning
the world's forests. Today, 70% of former Amazon rainforest is used
for pastureland, and feed crops cover much of the remainder. These
forests serve as "sinks," absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, and
burning these forests releases all the stored carbon dioxide,
quantities that exceed by far the fossil fuel emission of animal
agriculture.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the real kicker comes when looking at
gases besides carbon dioxide--gases like methane and nitrous oxide,
enormously effective greenhouse gases with 23 and 296 times the
warming power of carbon dioxide, respectively. If carbon dioxide is
responsible for about one-half of human-related greenhouse gas warming
since the industrial revolution, methane and nitrous oxide are
responsible for another one-third. These super-strong gases come
primarily from farmed animals' digestive processes, and from their
manure. In fact, while animal agriculture accounts for 9% of our
carbon dioxide emissions, it emits 37% of our methane, and a whopping
65% of our nitrous oxide.

It's a little hard to take in when thinking of a small chick hatching
from her fragile egg. How can an animal, so seemingly insignificant
against the vastness of the earth, give off so much greenhouse gas as
to change the global climate? The answer is in their sheer numbers.
The United States alone slaughters more than 10 billion land animals
every year, all to sustain a meat-ravenous culture that can barely
conceive of a time not long ago when "a chicken in every pot" was
considered a luxury. Land animals raised for food make up a staggering
20% of the entire land animal biomass of the earth. We are eating our
planet to death.

What we're seeing is just the beginning, too. Meat consumption has
increased five-fold in the past fifty years, and is expected to double
again in the next fifty.

It sounds like a lot of bad news, but in fact it's quite the opposite.
It means we have a powerful new weapon to use in addressing the most
serious environmental crisis ever to face humanity. The Prius was an
important step forward, but how often are people in the market for a
new car? Now that we know a greener diet is even more effective than a
greener car, we can make a difference at every single meal, simply by
leaving the animals off of our plates. Who would have thought: what's
good for our health is also good for the health of the planet!

Going veg provides more bang for your buck than driving a Prius. Plus,
that bang comes a lot faster. The Prius cuts emissions of carbon
dioxide, which spreads its warming effect slowly over a century. A big
chunk of the problem with farmed animals, on the other hand, is
methane, a gas which cycles out of the atmosphere in just a decade.
That means less meat consumption quickly translates into a cooler
planet.

Not just a cooler planet, also a cleaner one. Animal agriculture
accounts for most of the water consumed in this country, emits
two-thirds of the world's acid-rain-causing ammonia, and it the
world's largest source of water pollution--killing entire river and
marine ecosystems, destroying coral reefs, and of course, making
people sick. Try to imagine the prodigious volumes of manure churned
out by modern American farms: 5 million tons a day, more than a
hundred times that of the human population, and far more than our land
can possibly absorb. The acres and acres of cesspools stretching over
much of our countryside, polluting the air and contaminating our
water, make the Exxon Valdez oil spill look minor in comparison. All
of which we can fix surprisingly easily, just by putting down our
chicken wings and reaching for a veggie burger.

Doing so has never been easier. Recent years have seen an explosion of
environmentally-friendly vegetarian foods. Even chains like Ruby
Tuesday, Johnny Rockets, and Burger King offer delicious veggie
burgers and supermarket refrigerators are lined with heart-healthy
creamy soymilk and tasty veggie deli slices. Vegetarian foods have
become staples at environmental gatherings, and garnered celebrity
advocates like Bill Maher, Alec Baldwin, Paul McCartney, and of course
Leonardo DiCaprio. Just as the Prius showed us that we each have in
our hands the power to make a difference against a problem that
endangers the future of humanity, going vegetarian gives us a new way
to dramatically reduce our dangerous emissions that is even more
effective, easier to do, more accessible to everyone and certainly
goes better with french fries.

Ever-rising temperatures, melting ice caps, spreading tropical
diseases, stronger hurricanes... So, what are you do doing for dinner
tonight? Check out www.VegCooking.com for great ideas, free recipes,
meal plans, and more! Check out the environmental section of
www.GoVeg.com for a lot more information about the harmful effect of
meat-eating on the environment.

On Dec 4, 8:50*pm, VolksVegan > wrote:
> Vegetarian is the New Priushttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegetarian-is-the-new-pri...
> Kathy Freston.Author, Health and Wellness Expert

Vegetarian is the new Prius?
You mean like, more expensive to dispose of?
Has a reliance on a component seen as so environmentally destructive
that it alone off-sets savings in the fuel-at-the-pump use?
And being a hybrid, really means, meat eating, with a helping of veg
on the side.

http://www.thecarconnection.com/tips...oding-the-myth

On Dec 5, 8:56 am, aquachimp >
wrote:
> On Dec 4, 8:50 pm, VolksVegan > wrote:
>
> > Vegetarian is the New Priushttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-freston/vegetarian-is-the-new-pri...
> > Kathy Freston.Author, Health and Wellness Expert
>
> Vegetarian is the new Prius?
> You mean like, more expensive to dispose of?

Or like, "the bulk of scientific studies on vehicle lifecycle
analysis, many of which conclude that about 85 percent of total
lifetime energy use occurs in driving the vehicle."
http://www.thecarconnection.com/tips...oding-the-myth

> Has a reliance on a component seen as so environmentally destructive
> that it alone off-sets savings in the fuel-at-the-pump use?

Consider it an urban legend. "the best way to assess the environmental
impact of a vehicle is to do a full evaluation of all the inputs and
outputs in every stage of a vehicle life.”
http://www.thecarconnection.com/tips...oding-the-myth

> And being a hybrid, really means, meat eating, with a helping of veg
> on the side.

Or perhaps a hybrid as in fruit eating with a helping of veg on the
side. What you refer to more closely resembles a scavenger

>
> http://www.thecarconnection.com/tips...ius-versus-hum...

C.

On 12/4/2010 11:50 AM, VolksVegan wrote:
> Vegetarian is the New Prius
> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-...i_b_39014.html

Exactly: the latest symbol of sanctimonious self-congratulation by
people who don't know their ass from their face.

On Sat, 04 Dec 2010 19:50:05 +0000, VolksVegan >
wrote:

>Vegetarian is the New Prius
>http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kathy-...i_b_39014.html
>Kathy Freston.Author, Health and Wellness Expert
.. . .
>The U.N. report says
>almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock (i.e.,
>those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle, and
>others)

How much of it comes from people who eat a lot of beans and
broccoli?